The Tomorrow War: Biggest Unanswered Questions

Warning: SPOILERS for The Tomorrow War.

The Tomorrow War leaves a lot of unanswered questions about the movie’s terrifying Whitespike aliens and what happens next. Directed by Chris McKay, The Tomorrow War was originally developed by Paramount Pictures as a new, original sci-fi blockbuster franchise with Chris Pratt in the lead. Due to COVID-19, though, the movie was sold to Amazon Studios and released exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the summer of 2021.

The story of The Tomorrow War begins in 2022 where a team of soldiers from the future arrive in the present day to recruit civilians to fight in a war to stave off humanity’s extinction. Pratt’s Dan Forester is eventually drafted into the worldwide time-traveling army, where he finds himself under the command of a future version of his daughter Muri (Yvonne Strahovski). They work together to try and develop a toxin capable of killing the Whitespikes, a deadly group of aliens who are days away from wiping out all of humanity. Dan and Muri successfully craft the toxin, but Muri tells Dan he’ll need to mass-produce it in the past and kill the Whitespikes before they can attack. It builds to Tomorrow War‘s revealing ending, where Dan and a small team eliminate the Whitespikes several years in advance.

With its original world and story, The Tomorrow War is responsible for doing a lot of world-building. While the movie takes the time to clear up some plot points and lingering questions, there isn’t enough space to address them all. Furthermore, some questions might have been purposefully left unanswered with hopes of The Tomorrow War 2 happening. That won’t make the film’s actual unanswered questions any easier for viewers to accept, and here are some of the biggest questions The Tomorrow War leaves behind.

When Did The Whitespikes Crash On Earth?

The end of The Tomorrow War explains that the Whitespikes have a much older history with Earth than people from the future thought. The aliens don’t attack humanity until 2048 and those in the future believed they arrived in Russia around this time. The truth is that the aliens originally came to Earth over one thousand years ago, but the exact timing of their arrival is unknown. The Tomorrow War establishes that their time on this planet goes back to around 946. This is known because one of the Whitespikes’ claws has ash from the eruption of Paektu Mountain, which is estimated to have occurred in 944 or 946 AD. However, the Millennium Eruption might have also lasted until 947 AD according to some historical documents. The Tomorrow War gives a general explanation for this question, but a more accurate timeline could be formed through flashbacks to their arrival.

Where Were The Whitespikes Meant To Go?

Although the Whitespikes terrorized Earth and humanity once they were defrosted in 2048, The Tomorrow War leaves open the distinct possibility they were never supposed to be here. It isn’t known if Earth was always supposed to be where the Whitespikes attacked or if a future version of humanity was the subject of a very unfortunate circumstance. Since the Whitespikes’ only goal appears to be eliminating any other forms of life and eating, the killing machines might have been destined to wipe out humanity. Whether that is their true purpose, though, remains to be seen.

Who Brought The Whitespikes To Earth?

Another fascinating but unanswered layer of the Whitespikes’ story in The Tomorrow War is why they are on Earth. More specifically, though, the question is in regards to who brought them here. Dan and his team discovered that the crashed ship carrying the Whitespikes was being piloted by a different race of aliens. They aren’t too phased by this revelation that another intelligent life form exists in the galaxy, and The Tomorrow War doesn’t even slightly address who these other aliens are. Did these aliens create the Whitespikes? Did this race previously defeat and subdue the killer aliens? There’s no answer to that question yet, and it’s a bigger mystery now that those aliens were blown up along with the ship.

Why Do The Whitespikes Disappear Every 7 Days?

An intriguing quirk of the Whitespikes’ story in The Tomorrow War is the routine that they go into hiding for one day every week. The absence on the seventh day is a convenient plot device at first, as this gives the human army a designated day to bring new recruits from the past to the future. However, there is never an explanation given for why the Whitespikes do this, to begin with. Are they returning to the Queen Whitespike for breeding purposes? Are they honoring some sort of Whitespikes Sabbath? It is a puzzling mystery that The Tomorrow War doesn’t address.

Is There More Than One Female Whitespike?

There is also a logistical question about the Whitespikes’ dominance that needs to be addressed. The Tomorrow War featured only one female Whitespike, who served as the Queen alien of the species. This is quite a familiar trope for sci-fi movies, such as with the Queen Xenomorph in Alien, but is there really only a single Whitespike among the hundreds (if not thousands) of killer aliens? Viewers only see the one in the crashed ship, and that same one is featured prominently in the future timeline. There is no way to know, though, if another female Whitespike did exist to help increase the alien population and ensure their victory.

What Happened To Future Soldiers Stuck In The Present?

The start of The Tomorrow War sees soldiers from the future arrive in the present to help train the new civilian recruits and stay in contact with the future army. These soldiers presumably would’ve returned to the future if the Whitespikes were defeated in that time and the war was over. However, the jump link is destroyed when the Whitespikes attack the future base to rescue the Queen. This leaves those future soldiers in the past with no way to get back to where they came from. The Tomorrow War doesn’t show any of these characters after the Whitespikes are destroyed in the present, which leaves the fates of all of the future soldiers up in the air. They could disappear from existence depending on the time travel logic this franchise ultimately uses. But, it seems more likely that they are simply left in the present, which leaves them vulnerable to create paradoxes due to their sheer existence in a time when they shouldn’t be around.

Is The Future Timeline Destroyed?

One of the biggest questions viewers might have at the end of The Tomorrow War is what happened to the future timeline. Dan Forester spends seven days in that timeline to fight back against the Whitespikes and make up for a broken relationship with Muri that he was not yet responsible for creating. The last audiences see of this timeline, though, is Muri falling with the Queen Whitespike into a mountain of the deadly aliens as humanity’s last hopes dwindle. But does this timeline still exist in the multiverse? The Tomorrow War doesn’t spend the time getting into the specifics of its time travel and multiverse rules, so it is unknown if changing the present wipes that future from existence. If not, then a future timeline exists where the Whitespikes have won.

Are The Whitespikes Really Gone?

In terms of The Tomorrow War‘s future as a franchise, this is arguably the most important. The Whitespikes are completely gone as far as the movie shows, but they can’t be if there will be more to this story. Viewers can’t know for sure that a single Whitespike didn’t escape from the crashed ship prior to the explosion. This could provide a simple way for the aliens to return in the future. They could also be brought back in a sequel through the other timeline, a reveal that there is another ship full of Whitespikes secretly hidden on Earth, or through another explanation. In any case, the world might not be as rid of Whitespikes as they believe by the end of The Tomorrow War.

About The Author

Cooper Hood
(5627 Articles Published)

See also  Resident Evil: 10 Chris And Claire Redfield Cosplay That Are Too Good

Cooper Hood is a news and feature writer for Screen Rant. He joined Screen Rant in late 2016 following a year-long stint with MCU Exchange, which came after first developing an MCU blog of his own. He graduated college in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Media & Public Communication, with a minor in Media Production. Cooper’s love for movies began by watching Toy Story and Lion King on repeat as a child, but it wasn’t until The Avengers that he took an invested interest in movies and the filmmaking process, leading him to discover the world of film journalism. Every year Cooper looks forward to seeing the latest blockbusters from the likes of Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, but also loves the rush to catch up on Oscar films near the end of the year. When he isn’t writing about or watching new releases, Cooper is a fantasy football obsessive and looking to expand his Blu-Ray collection – because physical media is still king! Follow Cooper on Twitter @MovieCooper.

More From Cooper Hood